Posted
by
Soulskillon Saturday November 24, 2012 @08:25PM
from the also-supports-other-letters-of-the-alphabet dept.

slashchuck writes "One of the drawbacks of Google's Nexus 4 was its lack of support for 4G LTE. Now comes a report from AnandTech that it's possible to enable partial LTE support on the device. It seems that a simple software update can allow the Nexus 4 smartphone to run on LTE Band 4. All users have to do is dial *#*#4636#*#* (INFO) or launch the Phone Info app. After that, choosing to connect to AWS networks should allow the Nexus 4 to run on LTE networks on Band 4. The AnandTech report states explicitly that the LG Nexus 4 only works on LTE Band 4, on 1700/2100MHz frequencies, and supports bandwidths of 5,10, and 20MHz."

If you read the article, the answer is "No." Despite what the summary says, AnandTech was not able to actually connect to any cellular provider. They're just saying that the radio is there for LTE on Band 4.

"For example, in the USA, AT&T previously discussed plans for LTE on Band 4 but has only rolled out LTE on Band 17 to date, and is rumored to be turning to refarming its PCS (1900 Band 2) and Cellular (850 Band 5) holdings for additional LTE capacity, perhaps in the stead of AWS. T-Mobile US however will use AWS for LTE."

True, T-Mobile's 4G is really HSPA+, not LTE, though the frequency bands appear to be the same. Please excuse me if I'm as confused as everybody else with this alphabet soup of similar standards, spiced up with a liberal dose of creative marketing.

T-Mobile is deploying LTE, but in all honesty, the distinction between them is moot for probably 70-80% of their customers.

HSPA+, when it works properly, is basically as fast as LTE. The catch is, HSPA+ only gets its fastest rates if the user has solid connections to two or more towers, because it works the same way a dialup shotgun modem worked -- the phone independently connects to two or more towers, then splits the bitstream and sends part to each tower. Upstream, the bits are recombined into a single bitstream by T-Mobile's network.

Where LTE makes a difference is suburbia. Specifically, suburban locations where the user can only see one tower well, but has a rock-solid signal from that one tower. THEN, the user might get 16-20mbps from LTE, but only 4-6mbps from HSPA.

Here's the catch: if the user has a mediocre signal from two towers, but a strong signal from NONE, he might discover that T-Mobile's 1700MHz LTE doesn't work at all, and he's still limited to 10-12mbps HSPA+. If the user has a mediocre signal from ONE tower, he'll probably be lucky to see 1-2mbps, just like he does now, and LTE won't work either.

Why? LTE's throughput is kind of like 8-VSB TV transmissions. When it's strong enough, it's flawless and full-speed, even when other radio modes are degrading badly. But the moment your signal gets even a tiny bit weaker than the minimum (roughly 10dBm stronger than the minimum for viable HSPA), you fall off the cliff and lose it entirely. You don't get slower LTE... you have no LTE *whatsoever*.

So... one strong tower == LTE faster than HSPA(+)

Two mediocre towers == HSPA+ mostly works, LTE doesn't work reliably.

One mediocre tower == HSPA limps along, LTE doesn't work at all.

Two or more strong towers == LTE slightly faster than HSPA+ in theory, and might use less power, but looking at speed alone, you'd be hard-pressed to tell with any real certainty whether the user was using LTE or HSPA+. LTE has better latency (no need to demux, split, buffer, and recombine bitstreams, and the symbol rate itself is faster), but the difference isn't all that huge.

T-Mobile will be rolling out LTE-Advanced, which is a generation ahead of what AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint are offering. It supposedly has far better noise and signal tolerance for high-speed use. I think it was smart for T-Mobile to skip the LTE-lite and go straight into LTE-Advanced.

It will when T-Mobile rolls out LTE service next year. For now HSPA+ 42 is just fine on T-Mobile, in fact I get the same speeds on that as my friends who have Verizon LTE get. And I have unlimited data to boot.

I'm surprised the shift to LTE is still under discussion. I (and millions of others) have had Verizon LTE for nearly two years now using a Samsung phone. That is a dog's age in the tech world.

The context is the price of the phone. I have a Galaxy Nexus and a Nexus 4. The 4 is a moderate (though certainly noticeable) improvement over the latter, but costs less than half what my Galaxy Nexus cost. In less than a year, the price dropping more than 50% for a BETTER product is pretty ridiculous. This "hack" gets around one of the bigger drawbacks that people were complaining about, albeit for a small segment of phone owners.

This "hack" gets around one of the bigger drawbacks that people were complaining about, albeit for a small segment of phone owners.

Personally, I wish people would keep on complaining about it -- that way I stand a better chance of getting one myself if it ever comes back into stock:( Given how quickly the phone sold out around the world, I'm not sure too many people cared about the LTE thing in the first place (well, either that or Google had ridiculously low stock levels...)

I understand why the plebs are so anxious for LTE, but I don't understand why nerds are. For a moderate speed boost in most cases (+/-5Mbps in real world) there's such a drastic (6+ hour) cut in battery life.

Does anyone really need to prove they're right about who did the original voice for Boba Fett that quickly?

I agree. also, if they make the next nexus device 2mm thicker but give all that space to battery I'd be happy too. Although the "charge it every" thing works ok overall, having to constantly worry about my battery if I've browsed heavily or whatnot is annoying more than an extra 2mm and 50gr of weight.
That being said I have a galaxy nexus, and I own 2 spare batteries for it and I use those instead when I need to. not possible with the new nexus 4, though.

In the real world, LTE rocks. I get faster connections on LTE than any wired connection I've ever had. Granted, they don't allow me outside of the dungeon much, so sharing the connection with the others in the cube farm doesn't give me much speed personally. When I'm on LTE, I get like 30 Mbps to myself.

In YOUR real world it rocks. LTE is such a beast that depends very heavily in the configuration of towers and the signal strengths you get from them. For me where I live LTE is painfully slow. HSDPA+ is rock solid and fast. Where I work it's exactly the opposite, but then having only one tower near I can't get HSDPA+ there.

LTE unfortunately is more flaky in consistently great coverage than HSDPA which doesn't bode well for the way many of our networks are rolled out.

My data speeds went from 1Mbps to around 16 Mbps when switching from 3G on Verizon. I top out around 22 Mbps. It makes a huge difference. Even a 5 Mbps jump is very significant when your starting point is about 1 Mbps, a pretty normal speed for me on 3G. LTE makes my phone a suitable backup for my landline and for traveling. 3G didn't cut it, too slow in comparison.

I guess that's probably the real issue, 3G saturation I mean. Where I am I get 7-10Mbps on 3G, the LTE phones I've seen are 12-15; 1 vs 6 is huge for sure, so I can see it being huge in very crowded markets; 10 vs 15 isn't so important when Instagramming or watching a YouTube video on the bus to justify the battery drain, in my eyes.

You're comparing 3G EVDO on Verizon (which was barely 3G) to LTE. The Nexus 4 supports 4G HSPA+ which is WAY faster than Verizon's 3G service (as is HSPA, which my 2 year old android phone has). LTE is a bit faster than HSPA+, but not by much.

LTE is important on Verizon as it is the only 4G service they offer, and their 3G service was fairly slow. This is due to the fact that Verizon rolled out EVDO ages ago, when it was new.

So, yes, if you're on Verizon not having LTE is a non-starter, but the Nexus 4 w

Verizon and Sprint had no choice but to upgrade (to LTE or Wimax), because EVDO rev.A hits a brick wall at ~2mbps. They COULD have upgraded to EVDO.revB, but the capital cost would have been almost the same, and they would have ended up locked in to Qualcomm as a single-source vendor forever, and paid premium prices for everything they bought going forward.

For AT&T and T-Mobile, the benefits of LTE aren't nearly as big. They're real, and they exist, but they aren't earth-shaking for 80% or so of their r

It's not so much the direct lack of LTE that's a problem for me, but the fact that not having LTE means it won't run on Verizon or Sprint's network. I was anxiously waiting for the new Android phones so that I could switch to Ting (which runs over Sprint).

No, the lack of CDMA is what keeps it from running on VerIzon and Sprint. When Verizon and Sprint finally send voice and provisioning over LTE like competent mobile providers, then you'll have a complaint, but I wouldn't hold your breath.

Maybe where you are, but LTE comes with substantial infrastructure issues. The main issue is usually availability of the radio spectrum. Here it was being used for other things until recently, my understanding is that in North America it was not, leaving the much lesser but still significant matter of putting equipment on towers.

Cellphones require global economies of scale. Some have minor variants to adapt global models to national or even carrier-specific requirements, but the rest of the phone wouldn't

I assume there is a reason Google does not enable this by default.Are the patents licensed? Does their FCC certification cover LTE?Maybe they just didn't think it was worth the potential confusion, given the limited frequency support. (Compare Apple's "4G" support in Australia. [guardian.co.uk])

All 30 are free and probably enough to get you to the end, but the draconian 2y contract keeps you from using spread, laser, or fire attacks. Also, the data caps mean you'll be fighting through to it in monochrome vector glory or with heavy sprite limits.

"The modem contains 4G LTE capabilities but is only effective when combined with other essential hardware parts such as a signal amplifier and filter in order for it to work" the LG spokesperson explained. "It therefore cannot be upgraded to 4G LTE capability through software."

Apple's cheapest phone is $650. Google's is $299. You'd have to be a fool to expect that they would be treated the same with that price delta. Also just how much is Apple paying for their goddamn radio that a 32GB iPod Touch is $299, but it's $650 for 16GB iPod Touch + Phone capabilities (iPhone)?

i'm not sure what you are referring to, the cheapest price at your link is $549, or $99 + $2040 (i'm sure there are additional costs, i have no idea about US cellular plans, but i guess you have to pay the monthly rate... well monthly.. for the duration of the contract?).. but at least you have proven to your parent poster that the cheapest new iphone is $549, not $650

There is a reason for the disappearance of SD cards on phones. That is the patent war Apple started and the FAT patent that Microsoft, Apple's partner in the war, is using to get leverage on electronics vendors. Apple is an ally of Microsoft and has full cross licensing with them. It is completely right to blame Apple for the lack of SD cards which they cased and at the same time, completely right to forgive Google who are victims of Apple and Microsoft just the same as the rest of us.

Think of the usability though. The user has a working SD card; they put some data on on Windows. They put it in the other device; it "doesn't work". Do they blame the card which works everywhere else or do they blame the device where the card doesn't work?

I like the idea of removing patented features from the system and putting them in separate paid apps that cost exactly the license share...

Ubuntu had/has something like this. E.g. some hardware and media features required paying. I think it's a pretty neat idea. I don't think it would work for Google directly; people hate having to pay extra to get something that should work. However I just had a thought. I know that in the US they use mail in rebates lots for making things cheaper for those that care. They could have a patent rebate where the features are there, get enabled when you want them, but you can decide you want the money inst

LG has to say no -- the alternative is to admit they released a terminal with an optional radio mode completely untested for regulatory compliance, failing their FCC certification until they retest it including LTE.

But it DOES have a signal amplifier for AWS 1700/2100 MHz, for the T-Mobile system. Which, as we now know, will also work for the LTE Band 4 systems (like in Canada and the upcoming T-Mobile LTE-Advanced networks). So, yes, it CAN be upgraded to 4G LTE through software.

Mobile data plans in the UK have always been a running joke with me (too little data for far too much), but Everything Everywhere in the UK have taken this to a new art form recently. They have a monopoly on 4G/LTE for a while and have decided to *start* their data plans at 36 pounds ($57) for 500 MB (yes, that's megabytes folks) per month. Yep, that's lower data and a much higher price than most 3G data plans.

So let me see, if say I get a 10Mbits/sec connection on 4G (and that's pretty conservative) and use it for a large download or a continuous stream at that rate, I will exhaust my expensive monthly 4G plan in under 7 minutes. Way to go, EE - let's make 4G utterly useless in the UK by underquotaing and overpricing it. Geniuses!

I try to tell my American compatriots this exact thing when they get on the american cellular providers suck bandwagon, but it usually goes in one ear and out the other. As much as I hate American Telco's I'd take them any day over many of the European ones.

Makes sense, analysis when the LTE capable chip was first found was that the chipset could support LTE but the phone lacked the required antennas for it, I guess band 4 is the one band that can be picked up by the 3G antenna?